CO. “Today, the Longmont ballot issue committee of Our Health, Our Future, Our Longmont filed a notice of intent with the Longmont City Clerk to put a charter amendment on the November ballot to ban hydraulic fracturing (fracking) within Longmont city limits.” (MR)

* 100 days ’til the Democratic National Convention drinks wine, and praises the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone, on the floor of the Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, NC. Cue the 100 days jokes!

About Matt Stoller

From 2011-2012, Matt was a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. He contributed to Politico, Alternet, Salon, The Nation and Reuters, focusing on the intersection of foreclosures, the financial system, and political corruption. In 2012, he starred in “Brand X with Russell Brand” on the FX network, and was a writer and consultant for the show. He has also produced for MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show. From 2009-2010, he worked as Senior Policy Advisor for Congressman Alan Grayson. You can follow him on Twitter at @matthewstoller.

Promote growth, promote growth, Jesus Christ, is Frank Luntz getting a nickel for every use of this new catch phrase?!

It’s really quite amazing that from the U.S. to Greece and everywhere in between politicians are able to remove their lips from the corporate teat long enough to say “Promote growth, promote growth!”

Goo goo, gaa gaa.

Let’s see:

1) The earth and its resources are finite, so we can’t very well keep promoting growth indefinitely. Wouldn’t now when the entire system is on the brink of collapsing be a good time to start changing our philosophy?

2) Why, it sure seems that the neoliberal “growth” philosophy really means growth for the Western elite and no one else.

Why, some may say that said elite are – hello! – actually murdering people in foreign lands and stealing their resources so they can still “grow” – morally and spiritually as well as financially, I’m sure.

Why, some could say that the elite are stealing resources from all but the highest socioeconomic classes in their countries of residence so that the only things growing are their egos and bank accounts.

These f*cking people – to a man and woman – need to be jailed.

Growth is a cute euphemism for the murder of more innocent people and/or the theft of their resources.

Taibbi is a great reporter, but he left me curious about why the SEC behaves in this way,basically goes after small firms with everything they have while leaving the big firms alone.

One of his commentators offered an explanation that was coherent and fits the evidence:

“When I interviewed for a job at the SEC as an attorney in the enforcement division, I was told by the SEC atorneys interviewing me that they go after the little fish because that is the most effective use of their time. There are more violations of our securities laws than the SEC can possibly prosecute, so they want to prosecute the worse cases where they can either get guilty pleas or win a summary judgment motion without a trial.

They simply don’t have the time or manpower to go after every wrongdoer, so they go after the easiest cases to win, and leave the others alone.

Of course, this means they don’t go after big companies or firms that will hire 100 lawyers and fight them tooth and nail over everything. They want easy wins, not tough fights.”

It would be great if someone would produce an authoritative account of how exactly regulatory captures, though I suspect we will have to wait until a few insiders snitches. Its probably a combination of bribery and blackmail at the very top, slowly weeding out anyone competent and interested in regulation in the middle levels, and changing the internal policies of the office so it becomes literally not the job of employees in the lower levels to do any proper regulation.

This might be their official line, but it’s the usual dichotomy of either (a) it’s a lie to cover up protecting the big firms or (b) it’s true which means they’re a bunch of idiots. It’s obvious that protecting investors (and, you know, homeowners, innocent bystanders, etc.) requires you to prove that no firm is safe from prosecution. This means at the very least going after _some_ firms of each type. This might be an expensive undertaking, but to declare the big firms (or any sector) exempt is sheer lunacy, unless the intention is to benefit those who commit fraud.

As an analogy: suppose the police decided, on the ground of insufficient staffing, to focus on murder but refuse to investigate, arrest, or charge anyone for theft, burglary or robbery. Or, you know, the other way around…

Heh. Exactly the opposite of the philosophy of Bill Black and the regulatory crew who cleaned up the S&Ls then.

Pathetic. It’s a facade-orientated MO at best. Bottom line, it de facto props up the revolving door, the status quo and the big dog looters and crooks. More and more people will conclude that that’s what it is meant to do.

think of the state of michigan like a political map. on the west side of the mitten (and north of the bridge), everyone is ultra right wing (think devos, prince, etc.). but as you move east in the state, as you get to Detroit you get more liberal. to which all the republicans blame on the poor blacks, who are the largest receipenents of welfare (due to all the manufacturing base moving to mexico).

Very proud of Occupy MN….they have stood down the Mayor and the Mayor backed down. Victory!

Homes will be occupied from coast-to-coast. So, Mayors and Sheriffs around the country will be having to decide who they will serve and who they will protect….will they protect their constituents? The people who reside within their cities??? Or will they protect the “lenders” who are stealing these homes???

Re: Woman who stood up to Citi – inspiring story WRT to the actors in it.

WRT all the undiscovered “green slime” on the books of TBTF banks/mortgage underwriters – I’m reminded of the whole “Mad Cow” scare from a decade ago. Here in the US (world’s capital of beef consumption??), the FDA tried to tell everyone they were testing for MC and not finding anything….well, yes, if there are 5B pounds of meat and you test 1 pound and don’t find any, I suppose you can say the meat supply is safe….

Of course, in the article… the 4th paragraph from the end was written to foster just a bit of doubt about Better Markets being altruistic. I don’t care about purity – their interests align nicely with what I’d say are the interests here, and the man has the ear of the lawmakers.

What you are witnessing is a controlled die-off, running on automatic, which is the most stable way to replace an empire iteration. Measuring an economy by spending on FIRE, economic activity, is pretty damn stupid, but what do you expect from an empire run by teenagers?

Trust increases return on decreasing risk. If you do not have trust at the root, you are certainly not going to have it at the periphery (negative quantum backlash feedback emerging from incremental positive feedback). Conspiracy is derivative. Replicating robots programmed to think alike is derivative. Women handing over basic reproductive health to physicians for selective breeding is derivative. War is derivative.

Empires breed stupidity, decreasing return on increasing risk, promising the opposite, by borrowing from the future based upon confidence in their ability to continue breeding stupidity to infinity. That’s what they do.

The point of the obey clause is for both parents to learn trust, in their ability to navigate the unknown together, as an example to their children, to build community. There is explicit obeyance and implicit obeyance for each to learn, surprise, surprise. Learn to walk in the shoes of another. L-I-S-T-E-N, then C-O-M-M-U-N-I-C-A-T-E. Design your community accordingly.

Operating on the assumption of scarcity, based upon hoarding, is stupid. You have the proven bounty of the earth and the entire universe to explore, bequeathed to you by God. Only a teenager fears another teenager. Get on with life. Weaning yourself from currency is the process, not the destination.

Like all things practical, you learn by doing, then you figure out how you did it, and then you repeat the process for confirmation, before moving forward. War is a matching game, until it isn’t. Raising children in poverty is for replicating robots, not people.

From Poetry & Marriage

The meaning of marriage begins in the giving of words. We cannot join ourselves to one another without giving our word. And this must be an unconditional giving, for in joining ourselves to one another we join ourselves to the unknown. We must not be misled by the procedures of experimental thought: in life, in the world, we are never given two known results to choose between, but only one result that we choose without knowing what it is.

Form joins us to time….

Wendell Berry

The basis of trade, and the entire free enterprise system, is the standard marriage contract, which does not include the corporation: public, private, or non-profit, but go ahead and prove me wrong.

Pelosi is a fine example of the benefits of labels. We know she is a liberal, even the queen of the liberals, because this is what the media is always telling us. This is very helpful because if we just looked at her policy choices we would be hard pressed to distinguish between her and John Boehner. And then how would we know who to cheer for? /s